


non est ad astra mollis e terris via

by maharieel



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Bookends, Other, Tatooine, i made myself sad with a fic about the desert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-02-26 05:22:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13228932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maharieel/pseuds/maharieel
Summary: he was bred in the desert though, carries a token of its rage and destruction and emptiness (like his father before him and the old man up the rise and all tragic, sand-haired boys), and drags it with him forevermore.





	non est ad astra mollis e terris via

it starts in a desert, as all tragic things do, and he shouldn’t be surprised.

obi wan still remembers it like an old wound that plagues him when he makes too sudden of a move; the way his skin had melted and reformed between the patches of shade in the marketplace, as if he was not made of anything solid the second he stepped foot off the cruiser and sunk a few centimetres into the sand. his spirit had been tethered to something that the desert had not agreed with, and so it had done what deserts always do to the fragile things men call souls: torn it asunder.

_(tragic one, all who enter must pay the price)._

of course, qui gon had been more preoccupied with the threat at large and had not so much as complained at the sand that clung to them like a poltergeist. and qui gon, the fool – you do not seek refuge in a being so unconcerned with your survival, nor do you risk its wrath by stealing from it.

it had started in a desert, with molten skin and torn souls and stolen artefacts in the form of a sand-haired boy, and against all belief obi wan found his way back eventually. years and wars and losses later, he found his way back with aching bones and a heavy heart.

stepping off the cruiser and into the marketplace with another sand-haired boy in arm, different but the same, obi wan felt the stolen piece of his soul slot smoothly back into place. he breathed deeply for the first time in years.

 _(tragic one, thank you for repaying your debt)_.

it doesn’t end in a desert, like obi wan supposes it should have, and that is somehow worse. he had resigned himself to the fact that he would someday sink so deep within the sands that it would consume him, not just in parts and fractures but wholly, and that he would become another relic lost to the horizon. but that is not how it ends. instead, he’s lost to the hateful aura of his apprentice, that foolish sand-haired boy with a heart too big for the world not to destroy, and evaporates into the great expanse of space like all other luminous beings.

obi wan thinks it should have ended in the desert, where the emptiness that embraced him was a comforting warmth and the sand was not hidden behind an obsidian helmet. in space, he died alone with a chill in his bones.

_(tragic one, you should have returned to me)._

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

it doesn’t start in the desert, not really, but everything that matters starts there and that’s almost the same thing. that’s what luke thinks, anyway.

he’s raised there, learning how to maneuver his tongue around foreign symbols and how to keep steady in the uneven sands when his legs don’t want to and how to return the favour to those who have helped and taught him how the world functions. luke learns a lot about how things work, in the desert, and is almost grateful when it, in turn, allows him the space to learn. its mistake, really, that it allowed his mind to wander so far from its reach; he learns quickly that he longs to fly.

the desert is a place of remnants, though, he also learns young. violent, aching vessels of things that stepped foot within the sinking sands that stretch the entire planet and lost their footing on the way down. it should have been a comfort, to know his place in amongst the forever-burning graveyard on the horizon, and yet all luke had ever wanted was to be free.

_(star child, you are ours)._

the old man up the rise, for example. luke is sure it didn’t start here for him; the unfocused glaze to his gaze and the ancient power rippling in his veins says as much, and yet he is as fractured as the other ghosts he’s encountered amongst the sands. if there’s one thing the old man teaches luke, it’s that he doesn’t want it to end in the desert.

and so it doesn’t. he escapes the prison, somehow, with a thrill in his bones and hope in his heart. he was bred in the desert though, carries a token of its rage and destruction and emptiness (like his father before him and the old man up the rise and all tragic, sand-haired boys), and drags it with him forevermore. with its rage comes misfortune and pain and loss, its feeble attempts to drive him home given form.

_(star child, you belong to us)._

it doesn’t start in the desert, not really, and it doesn’t end in the desert, not really. and yet, and yet –

luke dies, among other things, haunted; by the sands and the remnants and the lessons and the twin suns, above all else, because when you’re raised among such things they linger. the universe remembers the myth of the first jedi since the end, remembers the legend of the man who banished the darkness, but it’s the sands that remember the sand-haired boy beneath it all. somehow, that’s all that really matters and it’s the suns over the water that comfort him as he, too evaporates into the ether.

_(star child, we are your home)._

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

it starts in the desert and ends in fire and somehow that is fitting, for the chosen one.

anakin had always been haunted by the rage of the sands, had always harboured its anger and frustration at his presence. be loyal, and you shall be granted its acceptance, but he was never one for blind obedience and fought its grasp on his soul from the day his feet sunk beneath the sand. it beat him down for it, crushed him into the stifling heat like a sacrifice, but something other pulsed in his blood and he endured.

_(chosen one, you will endure worse yet)._

with anger comes fire, and the desert realised early that you could not fight heat with heat. anakin, young and reckless as he was, knew too that it could not hold him forever. something within him ached to flee, to take his mother’s hand and fly, leaving the sands and its anguish in the backburn. he did not deserve to suffer amongst the coarse and harrowing expanse, not him or shmi or anyone.

especially not shmi.

too soon, he gets his chance. too soon, he sees an opportunity to feel the wind under him. too soon, he leaves and the deserts fury follows him all the way out of the atmosphere and everything is wrong and wonderful and doomed.

_(chosen one, your time has not been served)._

fate has always had a way with anakin, that he knew, and he is drawn back to the desert with grief and anger and too many feelings to comprehend at once beating within his heart. he understands finally, when his saber is drenched in sand-people blood and his robes are soaked with shmi’s blood that the desert can bring nothing but death. his hatred sparks new embers within him, and the desert recoils at the heat.

he burns her body so she is not lost among the sands, yells a curse to the burning dunes in the distance, and leaves. he does not return.

it starts in the desert and ends in fire, and that is exactly how the fates wanted it.

the flame of anger within anakin grew and consumed him, his heart beaten and fractured and torn at with too many losses in too short of a time (shmi, qui gon, ahsoka, padme, obi wan, everyone and everything and gods, how many times can a broken thing break). too soon, anakin fades to the furthest corner of his soul and vader emerges. too soon, the fire consumes them both. at least in the end, with the heat melting away at everything he had become and even the sand-haired boy underneath it all, anakin finds the peace he had always sought.

_(chosen one, you are free)._

**Author's Note:**

> title translation: [latin] there is no easy way from the earth to the stars


End file.
